F1 | Aston: Alonso returns to old floor with lighter wing

It wasn’t the easiest weekend of the season for Aston Martin, although the English team still managed to get into the top ten in qualifying with Fernando Alonso, who was able to take his less fuel-efficient AMR24 up to eighth on the starting grid. Furthermore, given the penalty for Lewis Hamilton, who will start from the pit lane after having some Power Unit components replaced on his car, the Spaniard will move up one position, starting from seventh on the clean side of the grid.

On the contrary, his teammate, Lance Stroll, did not go beyond fourteenth place, even if the Canadian will also benefit from some penalties: in addition to that of Hamilton, the Aston Martin driver will advance further due to the disqualification of Pierre Gasly’s Alpine, excluded from qualifying after the FIA ​​revealed that the flow meter had exceeded the limit allowed by the regulations.

The interesting thing, however, is that Aston Martin has followed a different path this weekend, as Fernando Alonso has decided to take a step back and return to the old floor. It is well known that the team has had a difficult time during this season in terms of development, with several technical innovations that have not given the desired result. It is no coincidence that, Great Britain, both drivers had decided to take a step back and return to the floor introduced in Suzuka, abandoning the one in Imola that had made the car much more difficult to drive.

Here in Azerbaijan too, the drivers will have a differentiated set-up, as the Spaniard has gone back to the old floor without the latest innovations, which should at least provide the engineers with a greater amount of data to analyse to find further answers on how to direct development. Already in Monza, in fact, the team had used part of the free practice sessions for comparative tests and data collection, with the aim of having a clearer picture of the situation to set up medium-long term developments. “It’s difficult to say whether going back to the old floor has given me something more, but at least there is more data for the engineers,” said the Asturian after qualifying.

Added to this is the fact that Alonso chose to continue with the most unloaded configuration in terms of wings, which also includes the external part of the endplate cut: in this way, the Spaniard was able to continue with a setup already tested in free practice, an aspect that has a certain value on a track where confidence in the car counts for a lot. More generally, here in Baku the most unloaded configuration seems to have had its effects with the Spaniard, who was among the fastest overall on the straights, even managing to have 4/5 km/h more speed than poleman Charles Leclerc, bringing himself in line with the values ​​recorded by Mercedes.

On the contrary, on Saturday Lance Stroll chose to mount a slightly more loaded wing configuration than his teammate, with the addition of a nolder and a different design at the meeting point between the DRS flap and the endplate. Overall, however, the set-up chosen by the Silverstone team is aimed precisely in the direction of finding top speed on the straights, even if the Canadian’s choice seems more aimed at finding greater stability in the corners and in terms of tyre management, given that the AMR24 lacks total load.

Unlike Alonso, Stroll has chosen to go for a more loaded configuration, which also features the nolder, with a view to the race.

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

“There’s a difference of 3 or 4km/h without DRS between the two wings. So you carry that aspect of the extra downforce into the corners,” explained Tom McCullough, Aston Martin’s performance director.

“The teams have different philosophies, obviously. It seems like the tyre degradation is more difficult here than last year. There are quite a few differences compared to last year. We are on the V2 construction, which we know is a bit harder. The tyre pressures are higher, the track temperatures are higher, so all of this will make the life of the rear tyres a bit more difficult,” added the engineer.

In fact, last year a new tyre construction was introduced after the Baku round to respond to the increasing loads detected on the 2023 cars. Furthermore, the GP has been moved in date compared to previous seasons, so last year’s data is not of much help both in choosing the setup and in predicting how the tyres will behave during the race. Graining is one of the elements feared by the teams, especially in the first part of the GP when many will start with the medium, while the evolution of the track will have to be kept under control, a central theme of the entire weekend.